


You Wanna Go To Heaven (but you're human tonight)

by only_halfway_there



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: AU, F/M, I'm not really sure it's just an idea that won't go away, look it's gonna be angst and fluff and porn and all things in between, rewrite of the whole timeline tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:42:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_halfway_there/pseuds/only_halfway_there
Summary: If Persephone was a good little preacher's daughter, Hades was a Gecko, and the Underworld was somewhere in Texas, it might look a little something like this ...





	1. Daisy

**Author's Note:**

> I've never written for this fandom before, but after binge watching the show and getting all caught up - I had this idea for an AU that wouldn't go away. Be kind and, ya know, enjoy the ride? I promise it'll be a rewarding one.

_Be to her, Persephone,_  
_All the things I might not be;_  
_Take her head upon your knee._  
_She that was so proud and wild,_  
_Flippant, arrogant, and free,_  
_She that had no need of me,_  
_Is a little lonely child_  
_Lost in Hell, - Persephone,_  
_Take her head upon your knee;_  
_Say to her, “My dear, My dear,_  
_It is not so dreadful here.”_

  
**_Edna St. Vincent Millay_ **

**_One_ **

 They buried her mother on a Tuesday, just a week shy of Kate’s eighteenth birthday. It rained like it had never rained before, as far as Kate could remember, that day. Everyone huddled together under big black umbrellas as they commended her mother’s body to the earth.

Ashes to ashes.

Kate stood in between Scott and her father, holding both their hands like a lifeline, without knowing at the time that it would be the last time. The heels of her shoes kept sinking into the sucking mud on the ground.

What a strange thing to be worried about.

Dust to dust.

Things didn’t get better after that. She was three months from graduating, but school had become a nightmare of sympathetic looks and special treatment, because she’d “been through so much.” As if it wasn’t hard enough, being the preacher’s daughter. Now add dead mommy to that.

Scott didn’t handle it well, and that didn’t help matters either. Kate was at a loss. She didn’t know how to help him, she was barely holding _herself_ together as it was. And her father … Well. He might as well have not even been there.

They didn’t go to church any more, but Kate found herself praying harder than ever these days.

Salvation came nearly a month later, when she overheard Jessica and some of the other girls talking about their weekend plans. Sarah said her older brother knew a guy who could get them all fake IDs. In times past, Kate would have been the wet blanket. She would have been the first to scoff, maybe even condemn, anyone doing anything so immoral.

Kate Fuller was a good girl. Kate Fuller never did anything wrong.

She shouldered her bag then, and stepped closer to the group, the one she’d always been just on the fringes of. She heard her own voice then, and it sounded far away. “How much does something like that cost? I want in.”

Despite their incredulous, baffled looks, none of them were going to tell her no. She was the sad little girl whose mommy just died, after all.

That was how she found herself, Friday night, crammed into the middle seat of Kyle’s truck with three others – and more in the back – hair curled and makeup on, a dab of her mom’s perfume on her wrists. They were headed for the next town over. Where no one would know who they were.

Kyle was going to be the DD – he’d told her in a text that he just wanted to look out for her, and had added Matthew 6:13 to his message.

_And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil._

She thought it was sweet of him too be so worried, but at the same time … things had been a little weird with them here lately. Truthfully, she didn’t even know if she was going to drink anyway. But anything was better than sitting around at home on a Friday night with her messed up, broken to pieces little family.

They arrived at the little dive bar shortly after ten. Jeff said he had on good authority that the place would serve pretty much anyone, no questions asked, as long as you minded your p’s and q’s.

As far as Kate could tell, the building looked like it ought to maybe be condemned, and it didn’t seem to even have a _name_. She was starting to seriously reconsider what she was doing here. This wasn’t like her at all.

Kate looked down at the fake ID that had been procured for her. She’d had to provide a picture for it, so she’d used one of her mom’s old college photos. It felt a little – no, a _lot_ wrong – and she said a little prayer, her fingers going to curl around the cross at her neck.

Kyle parked the truck in the old dirt lot behind the … _establishment_ … and the kids in the back clambered out. Kate moved to slide out of the passenger seat after Jessica, making a point to not look back at Kyle. She knew he was probably hoping for a moment alone with her, but she felt like she was breaking enough rules for one night, and making out in his truck behind the seediest bar ever just seemed like it would be pushing it too far.

There was probably something wrong with her. The other girls talked about kissing and sex as if it was the greatest thing. Kate wouldn’t know about the sex part … and as for the kissing …

  
Well. Kyle was very sweet and _enthusiastic_ about the whole thing, but she couldn’t really say that she’d been wowed by her experiences with it so far.

She had to be some kind of monster, not appreciating him better. He was the sweetest, most encouraging boy. But she always thought … weren’t there supposed to be _butterflies_?

It was easier to get inside No Name Hole in the Wall than Kate would have expected. The big beefy guy at the door barely looked at her fifty dollar piece of plastic before waving her inside. It was in that moment that Kate truly realized that she had no idea what to do in a bar. Not the foggiest clue.

It was dim and smoky, and the music was _waaayyy_ too loud, with a bass line that sounded almost satanic to her ears. The kids from school had all dispersed – some had gone to dance, others had found the dark corners and were ordering drinks from the waitresses who wore short shorts and halter tops and way too much makeup. Kate was starting to feel both over and underdressed in her jeans and black camisole with her plaid shirt unbuttoned over that.

She felt a little like she’d been abandoned at sea here. The place was pretty crowded for such a hole in the wall, but there was a empty seat up at the bar. She made her way to it, feeling the whole time like everyone was staring at her, knowing her as an intruder.

Maybe sitting at the actual _bar_ in a place like this was the equivalent of sitting in the front row at school. Had she just outed herself as a _total square?_

“What’ll it be, princess?”

The voice startled her from her ruminations and she looked up, eyes widening.

The bartender was, quite simply, gorgeous. The kinda gorgeous that made you think he was probably a serial killer, just to balance things out. Kate was now _acutely_ aware of why all the other barstools were occupied by women. Dark eyes and dark hair, the edges of a tattoo peeking out above the collar of his white t-shirt – he was _sinful_. Kate felt like she’d lost the power of speech, along with just about all her good sense.

“Order or get out of the way for paying customers, sweetheart,” he told her, bringing her back to her senses, his expression expectant and not a little impatient.

Right. Crap. She needed to order something. But what? Kate had only ever had a sip of champagne at a cousin’s wedding once, but this didn’t really seem like the champagne kinda place. She couldn’t stand the smell of beer, let alone want to attempt to actually _ingest_ the stuff.

All she could think of were those fruity things you heard about in movies – she had no idea what was actually in any of those, but she knew there was one called a margarita.

Margarita. It meant daisy, she’d learned that in freshman Spanish. That was nice, right?

Hot bartender looked about ready to spit nails at her, but she quickly found her voice. “I’d like a margarita,”she said, a little meekly when he fixed her those eyes of his on her. “Please,” she added, because manners.

He gave her a look that she really couldn’t identify, a little bit of a twitch at the corners of his lips. “On the rocks or frozen?”

 _What_? Kate had no earthly idea what any of that meant, but she was pretty sure he’d toss her out on her backside if she took too much longer. “Frozen …?” She hoped that was the right answer, and that she sounded a lot more confident than she felt.

He _definitely_ rolled his eyes before turning away from her, and she was pretty sure she heard him mumbling under his breath about “co-eds”. Which – hey, was a good thing. At least he bought that she was in college, right?

It was then that some of the others that she’d come with made their way to the bar, including Kyle. Kate didn’t know why, but she felt ridiculously uncomfortable when he sidled up next to her and ordered a soda. She could hear Jessica and the other girls giggling behind her, and she knew why.

Hot bartender was no longer her secret, hidden treasure, and she was more than a little salty about it.

Luckily, they didn’t want to stick around long after they’d given their drinks, and they pulled Kate away with them, off to a booth where Jeff attempted to teach them all a game called quarters that he said he’d learned from his older brother.

Kate sipped at her drink – surprisingly delicious, kind of like a grown up slushy, lime and a hint of salt – and watched the others. She didn’t really partake in the game, and found herself looking over her shoulder, back at the bar, more often than she’d care to admit.

She was probably hallucinating, but she thought maybe hot bartender was looking at her a couple of times too.

She didn’t really get a chance to test that theory, but Jessica came back with another round of drinks then and gave Kate a look.

“He says you have to go get your own if you want it.” She jerked her head back in the direction of the bar, giving Kate a look that clearly said that she didn’t get it.

Kate didn’t get it either. Of all the people in this group, she was never the one to get singled out for things. Especially not by men who looked like _that_. Kyle seemed like he wanted to make a move, but Kate shook her head at him. “It’s fine,” she told him.

Her heart was pounding as she made her way back up to the bar. She gave him a wary look, noticing that he had another margarita all made up for her. “Is this some new kind of initiation?” she asked, sliding back into her barstool.

“Maybe I thought you looked bored.” He shrugged. “I can tell when people aren’t in their element. And you, Daisy,” he slid the margarita toward her, “are definitely out of your element.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, looking at her. “Let me guess. New in town. Trying to figure out where you _belong_?” He gave her a look that said he clearly thought that was a bunch of bs. “I can tell you, it’s not with them.”

Kate frowned, toying with the straw in her drink. Was this typical bartender behavior? “What are you, a life coach by day?” she asked him dryly, but it was hard to look at him. Not when what he said did have a ring of truth to it. She never really had felt like she belonged – anywhere, really. “I promise you, I’m doing just fine.” She started to take her drink and leave, a little shaken by the whole encounter, and him.

She’d only taken a few steps away from the bar when she took a sip of her drink, and whirled to look at him. “This is Sprite.” He grinned at her, a cocky, terrible, beautiful thing, and busied himself wiping down the counter, whistling a little. Kate narrowed her eyes.

“Let’s see that ID of yours again, Daisy,” he said, and Kate reluctantly slapped it down on the counter. He looked it over, then looked at her, and then back at the card. “Better than the shit we usually see. Who’s the girl?”

“My … My mother,” Kate admitted, looking down. There was no point I’m lying about it. She’d already been caught.

“How old are you? _Really_?”

“Eighteen,” Kate muttered.

He sighed, setting the card back on the counter and sliding it across to her. “Don’t let me catch you and your … friends in here again,” he told her, giving her another look that she couldn’t quite decipher. She grabbed her card up off the counter and shoved it back in her pocket, turning around just in time to see her friends being escorted from the building.

On the ride home, everyone was unnaturally subdued and silent, until Jessica broke the quiet with a groan. “I can’t believe we’re out fifty bucks now!”

“They could’ve done worse than confiscating the cards,” Kyle pointed out, giving Kate’s leg a squeeze. “Be grateful that’s where it ended.”

Kate didn’t say anything. They hadn’t taken _her_ card.

Later, while she was getting ready for bed, she pulled the card out of her jeans pocket, brow furrowed. They’d taken everyone else’s cards. But he’d given hers back. And not just that … she hadn’t noticed it, in the confusion of their forced exodus from the bar, but there was something else with it.

A folded up scrap of paper, with just one word scrawled on it in a messy, masculine hand.

 _Seth_.

 


	2. Storms and Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even the smallest things can be just one more step in the descent

_“There is peace even in the storm.”_

**_Vincent Van Gogh_ **

_**Two** _

Kate did her best to go about her day to day in the weeks that followed. It still didn’t make sense to her, what had happened that night, but maybe she was just making way too much out of it. In the light of day the next morning, she couldn’t even find the piece of paper – maybe one little margarita had just gone straight to her head and made her imagine the whole thing.

Still, in class, she found herself drawing little daisies in the margins of her notes, surrounding fanciful curlicues and renditions of his name.

 _Seth_. Just saying it in her mind sent a kind of shiver down her spine. It sounded a little dark, a little sinister. It suited him perfectly.

Kate had never been the kind of girl to draw hearts in her notebook and put initials inside of them. And she told herself that wasn’t what she was doing now. It was just … Curiosity. Nothing more. Her whole life, she’d never really come in contact with someone like him.

It was completely normal to do a Google search of the name he’d given her. The only clue she had to who he actually was. Of course, modern technology could only take you so far. A lot of search results, but none pertaining to him, specifically.

Of course, there was the biblical Seth – third son of Adam and Eve, the one they were blessed with after the death of Abel, the so-called “father of mankind”. Kate had a hard time reconciling the man she had met with any kind of biblical canon.

She snorted and scrolled a little further down, stopping at the result that talked about the Egyptian god, Set. Sometimes called Seth. God of storms and chaos.

“That’s a little more like it,” she murmured to herself, the corners of her lips quirking upward. The bell rang, signaling the end of Kate’s free period, which happened to be her last “class” of the day. With a sigh, she gathered up her books – she hadn’t gotten around to working on her AP English paper like she’d planned on, so she would have to work on it at home.

Kyle was waiting at her locker. Kate managed a quick smile, spinning her combination lock and getting her backpack and shouldering it. “What’s up?” she asked him, even though she was pretty sure she already knew.

He was going to ask her to go to church with him again this Sunday, the same way he’d asked every week since her mom had died. And truthfully, it _did_ feel weird not going. She’d grown up there, every Sunday sitting between Mama and Scott, listening to Daddy give the sermon. It was strange to think she hadn’t stepped foot in the building since her mother had died.

Kate had always managed to have an excuse for not going in the weeks past, but this time, even though she had one ready on her lips, she found herself agreeing. Maybe it was time to go back. Maybe she’d been wayward for a little bit too long.

So on Sunday she put on her little pale green sundress, the one with the little daisies on it. She put a little white cardigan over that, and held her hair back from her face with a white headband. It was her Sunday uniform, and admittedly, it felt nice to put it back on. She went to knock on Scott’s door, to see if maybe she could talk him into tagging along, but there was no answer. When she pushed the door open, it looked like he hadn’t even come home last night.

With a sigh, she pulled the door shut again, tapping out a quick text to her brother “Where ARE you?” with the angry emoji as extra punctuation. She didn’t expect an answer. Scott barely talked to her these days.

She made her way to her father’s room next, knocking gently before pushing the door open. “Daddy?” she said softly, peeking her head around the corner. He was still in bed. He spent a lot of time there lately. “I’m going to church with Kyle, I thought maybe you’d want to come along?” She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, smiling hopefully and taking his hand.

Jacob grunted as though he might not of heard her, then sighed as his eyes met hers. “Oh. No, Katie-Cakes, I think I’ll stay right here. You go on ahead though. It’ll be good for you. Go on now, go. You don’t want to be late.” He patted her hand and closed his eyes and Kate knew that she’d been dismissed.

“Okay, Daddy,” she said softly, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead, before standing up and heading back toward the door. “You get some rest.”

Once she was back out in the hall, she let out a long, sad exhale, wondering just how long they could stay broken like this. She already felt more alone than she ever had in her life, and there wasn’t a damn person she could talk to about any of it. Kyle would send his encouraging bible verses, and the girls at school – they’d tsk all sympathetically.

But none of them really understood what it was like to get tossed out to sea, alone and without a lifeline at all.

Storms and chaos, indeed. Maybe that’s what her little hallucination the other night had been all about.

***

Kyle tried to get Kate to come back for Sunday dinner at his house after church, but after dealing with the torrent of well wishes and welcome backs and unmitigated sympathy from the entire congregation, she knew she just didn’t have it in her to keep faking the smiles and promising to pass the condolences on to her father. She couldn’t keep on making excuses for Scott.

She thanked Kyle for taking her, and declined his offer to come inside and keep her company, before sliding out of his truck, giving him the most perfunctory of kisses on the cheek before she did.

She just wanted to be alone. She could make a sandwich and work on her English paper and turn off her phone and fall asleep around eight, like a good and proper nobody. It sounded perfect to her right now.

Except that there was no food in the kitchen. Not a slice of bread or a drop of milk. Of course. She hadn’t gone to the store this week, and since no one else around here seemed to care …

She slammed the refrigerator shut and snatched her little white straw purse off the table, along with the keys to Jacob’s truck, muttering to herself the whole time. She didn’t want to deal with the after church crowd here in town, didn’t want to spend three hours dealing with even more sympathy, so she cranked the windows down and headed for the highway.

She’d go to the evil, soulless, completely impersonal supercenter just off the interstate. No one there would know her. No one would question or give her those sad eyes about the fact that she was doing the family’s shopping now. She wouldn’t know a single blessed soul in this place, and she couldn’t be happier about it. The parking lot was pretty jam packed, which was just fine with her. The bigger the crowd, the easier it would be to lose herself in it all.

She made a mental list as she walked inside, past the automatic doors, grabbing a cart from the corral as she passed it, bypassing the home and beauty section and heading to the back where the groceries were.

Kate didn’t mind shopping. She liked wandering up and down the aisles, perusing the shelves for her desired items, mentally tallying the cost as she went. There was something soothing about it all, about the organization and the purpose here. It made her feel a little less frazzled. She thought she might get the ingredients to make spaghetti. Her dad had always loved spaghetti and meatballs, maybe she could get him to come downstairs, and eat at the table with her, kinda like old times. The thought had cheered her so much, that she eagerly started gathering the ingredients, thinking about how nice it would be if Scott was home too.

She turned the corner at the end of the aisle, and really, whose idea had it been to totally block off the sightlines of shoppers with the endcap merchandise? Kate’s cart smashed right into someone else’s and the reverberation of the collision made her teeth rattle.

“I am so sorry!” Kate started.

At the same time the driver of the other cart shouted, “Watch where you’re going! Jesus fuck!”

Really loudly.

And on a Sunday too.

Kate’s eyes snapped up, intending to give the stranger a pretty nasty glare, but instead found herself gaping.

_Storms and chaos, indeed._

In the garish fluorescent light of the store, she could see that it hadn’t just been the dim, smoky light of the bar playing tricks on her eyes. He was every bit as she remembered him – _better_ , really. The tattoo she’d seen above his collar that night, she now saw, was flames that went down the entirety of his left arm. His hair was messy, like maybe he’d just woken up, and he was sporting a little stubble along his jawline.

So basically, just as incredible as she remembered him. And very clearly _not_ a hallucination.

“I’m sorry,” she managed to mumble out again, cheeks going bright red, “I wasn’t paying attention, sorry about that, really.” Her knuckles tightened around the handle of the cart so tight they turned white as she started to finagle the cart at a better angle to get around him. The sooner the better, really. The only solace she had here was that there was no way he was gonna remember her from that night a few weeks ago. She’d just be the idiot who rammed him in the supercenter.

The expression on his face changed almost immediately, his head cocked to the side then as he looked at her. “Wait a minute,” he said, pointing a finger at her, “I remember you.”

He did? _Crap_. This was even worse than she’d imagined. “I don’t think so,” she said, looking down and pushing her hair back behind her ear, wanting to get out of this whole thing with at least a little dignity still intact.

“No, no, I definitely remember you. Daisy.” He grinned at her triumphantly, and she rolled her eyes, inwardly torn between groaning and _freaking out_ because he remembered her.

He was sort of blocking her cart then, so she was kinda forced to look at him. Unless she wanted to run him over and make a run for it. Which might not be a bad idea, all things considered.

“It’s Kate, actually,” she told him, since she had to say something.

_Okay but not your name, you idiot. What if he’s a serial killer?_

He grinned a little bit bigger then, and actually extended his hand. Kate looked at him, a little dumbstruck. “Do you not do this where you come from?” he asked her. “Is this like a Tarzan thing, were you raised in a jungle? Or maybe you’re one of those crazy germaphobes … Let me know when I get close. You’re Kate, I’m Seth, handshake?”

In spite of herself, and the fact that she was pretty sure he was mocking her, Kate laughed a little, reaching to shake his hand and trying to ignore how big and firm his grip was. “I know, I mean, I think I know. I got your, um … card?” It hadn’t really been a card, but what else was she supposed to call it?

“I noticed you didn’t come back,” he said. He still hadn’t released her hand from the handshake.

“You made it pretty clear that we shouldn’t,” Kate reminded him, pulling her hand back as gracefully as she could manage, not trying to come across as rude. He made her very uneasy – not in a bad way. That _was_ the uneasy part.

“I distinctly remember saying you _and_ your friends shouldn’t come back.” He gave her a pointed look.

Kate swallowed thickly. “Oh …” she said, before realization dawned. “ _Oh_.”

Well now she knew why he hadn’t taken away her card.

That didn’t mean she was any less confused about the whole thing, though. This kinda thing had never happened to her before. Kyle was the only boy who’d ever had even the littlest bit of interest in her. She couldn’t imagine what a man like _Seth_ would find worthy of even the slightest inclination toward her.

“Well,” she said, nodding just a little, “that’s not really my … thing. I don’t, I mean, that was the first time …” Her cheeks were on fire.

“Color me shocked,” Seth said, not unkindly.

“I’m really sorry I ran into you,” Kate said, awkwardly trying to wrap this up without somehow making an even bigger idiot of herself.

“I’m not,” Seth said with an easy shrug, and Kate bit back the urge to remind him of his more … colorful … expletive from before.

Mainly because she didn’t want to repeat it.

“Well … anyway …I really should get going,” Kate told him, starting to angle her cart away once again. “Nice seeing you … again … Seth.”

  
“Yeah. Looks like you’ve got big plans for the evening.” Seth nodded at the ingredients in her cart.

Kate raised a brow at the indignant, almost petulant sound in his voice. This _had_ to be some kind of joke. She glanced at his cart and audibly scoffed at the collection of junk food he’d tossed in there. “Looks like you’ve got a diabetic coma waiting for you this evening,” she told him, her lips curling upward a little. “Don’t you have anything _green_?”

“Course I do,” he said, reaching into the pile and pulling out a package of frozen burritos. “Salsa Verde.” He grinned at her, all proud of himself, and she fixed him with a look.

“ _Salad_.” She enunciated the words like she was talking to a small child. “Something with _leaves_ that grows in the ground. Give it a shot.”

“Never,” he told her with a firm nod, tapping the tip of her nose. She shook her head, leaning back from him then and finally steering her cart around him.

“Well, enjoy your cholesterol spike,” Kate told him as she kept walking, determined now to get stuff to make a salad to go with her own dinner.

“If you’re that worried about me, you know where to find me.”

Kate was just going to pretend she hadn’t heard that.

Even if it did make her heartbeat speed up a little bit in her chest.

***

The evening didn’t go at all as planned. Kate got back from the store in much better spirits than she’d been when she had left earlier. She was going to pretend it was just because she was excited about the prospect of a family dinner, and ignore the fact that it had _anything_ to do with Mr. Storms and Chaos.

Still, she changed into jeans and a pretty white top with little flower cut outs along the neckline and got to work making dinner. She even turned on Mama’s old radio and sang along to some of the cheesy country songs that played as she bustled around the kitchen. She didn’t even mind the fact that it started storming halfway through. She opened the widows to the smell of the rain and the ozone and the earth.

She set the table all nice and pretty, the way Mama had done before she’d gotten sick. She was just about ready to go get her father, to surprise him, when she heard the door open. Scott!

She hurried out to the other room to greet him and drag him into the kitchen for dinner, but stopped in her tracks, seeing him raiding Daddy’s secret liquor cabinet. “Scott, what are you doing?” she asked him, hugging her arms around herself.

“Don’t worry about it,” Scott told her, stuffing a few bottles into his bag and heading for the door again. “Don’t wait up,” he told her.

“But …I made dinner,” Kate said, a little helplessly.

“Why?” Scott asked, giving her an incredulous look. And then he was gone again, back out into the storm.

Kate was a little shaken, but she drew a deep breath and made her way upstairs. She and daddy could still have a nice dinner. They’d done that a lot, when she was little. Father daughter days.

As soon as she pushed open the door to his room though, she knew this was not going to be one of those days. The room reeked of alcohol, and her father was a motionless lump in the middle of the bed.

Choking back a strangled sob, Kate flung the windows open in the room to get some fresh air in there, and then stomped back downstairs, swiping angrily at the tears on her cheeks.

Back in the kitchen, she looked around at all her hard work, and her first instinct was to throw everything in the trash. She made herself take a deep breath and count to ten, and then picked up her phone. She texted Kyle, asking him if he wanted to come have dinner with her, before remembering his family would be at Sunday evening services.

Sighing heavily, and trying not to just give up and sit down on the kitchen floor and just sob until she made herself sick, she set to work methodically cleaning up. At least there would be leftovers for a few days.

She finished restoring the kitchen to its unused state and wearily started to climb the stairs to her room. She needed to work on that stupid paper for class, anyway. She went to her desk to grab her laptop, and when she did, a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground. Brow furrowed, she picked it up, a flash of lightning illuminating the writing on it.

 _Seth_.

Eyes widening, Kate abandoned her laptop on the desk and grabbed her plaid shirt from behind her door, shrugging it on as she raced back downstairs. She grabbed the still warm leftovers from dinner and the keys from the table and darted through the rain to Jacob’s truck.

Good idea, bad idea, they weren’t really the thoughts in her head as she drove, wipers at full speed, the thirty miles to the next town over.

She parked the truck in the same lot that Kyle had parked the first time they’d all come here. She was so full of adrenaline and anger about the evening that she didn’t even have time to be nervous. She was twirling her keys around her finger, Tupperware containers of food tucked between her side and arm as she made her way for the back entrance of the bar.

Seth was coming out with a few bags of trash, and Kate couldn’t deny the way her heart _definitely_ sped up at the sight of him. “We’re closing up,” he called her way, and she stopped, heart falling.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Sunday. Early hours.”

Seth pushed his rain-dampened hair back and looked in her direction. “Is that you, Daisy?”

“Kate. My name is Kate,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you’d be closing up early. I won’t keep you. Shouldn’t have come out here anyway,” she mumbled, kicking at the dirt a little and turning back to the truck.

It was only a moment, long enough to make her feel like a _total idiot_ , but just a moment nevertheless, before she heard,

“Daisy, get your ass in here and help me close up.”

With a grin tugging at the corners of her lips, Kate picked up her step, darting through the rain and toward the door he was holding open for her.


	3. Shelter From the Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kinda what it says on the tin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay with this one - I was a little under the weather last week, but I'm back now, and I hope this was worth the wait!

_"And if I pass this way again, you can rest assured_  
_I'll always do my best for her, on that I give my word_  
_In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm_  
_Come in, she said_  
_I'll give ya shelter from the storm”_

_**Bob Dylan** _

  
_**Three** _

Seth didn’t ask a lot of questions. He didn’t demand to know what she was doing there, didn’t give her the third degree. But she could see that he wanted to ask, and she could feel the way his eyes followed her as she moved around the backroom.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about this whole thing, now that she was here, and so she was more than happy to grab a rag and start wiping down the tables in the front of the bar, while Seth worked in the back, washing up the glasses from the evening’s patrons. She located the broom when she finished up with the tables and took care of the floor, before going back behind the bar again.

There was something very different about being here, alone with him like this. Obviously Kate had been alone with the Y-chromosome before, but it hadn’t really ever felt like this. Maybe it was because she’d sort of given him no choice, just kinda dropped in on him with no warning, and manners dictated he at least be somewhat gracious.

Though something told her that being a gracious host didn’t exactly rank high on Storms and Chaos’ to-do list.

He tossed her a dry towel when she came into range of the sink where he stood. “Dry them, before they get water spots.”

Case in point.

“Please and thank you,” she retorted, a little snarkily, and he shot her a look from the corner of his eyes. She could see the beginnings of a smirk quirking the corners of his lips upward, and, feeling a little emboldened, she kept on. “You know there are laws against slave labor.”

“Only if you get caught,” he shot back without missing a beat, and Kate rolled her eyes. “Besides, who said this was slavery? If I offer you a job, it’s fine, right? Completely on the up and up.”

Kate nearly dropped the glass she was drying then, gaping a little. “A job?” She bet she sounded like she was in remedial courses. “Why would you …”

“Because. It would be nice to have someone around here to help with the closing up. Just on the weekends, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I’ve got help the rest of the week.” He shrugged, leaning back against the sink, watching her as she finished drying the last of the glasses.

“Okay but don’t you need references or something?” Kate had never had a job before, she’d never even applied for one. She’d always put all her time and energy into school and the church.

“Not really. Privately owned business, and I’m the owner.” He flashed her a quick grin that didn’t quite meet his eyes. “That means I get to do whatever the fuck I want.”

“But why would you give _me_ a job?” Kate spluttered, still pretty sure she had missed a page or ten somewhere in here.

“Well, for one, you’re a natural with these glasses,” he quipped, reaching to take the one she was holding from her. His fingers brushed her hand, and Kate’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “And for another, it seems to me you could use a place to go where not everyone knows you or expects anything from you.”

Kate was a little dumbstruck. For being a veritable stranger, he sure had her pegged pretty well. “I don’t know what you mean,” she mumbled, turning to look out the window. The rain was coming down a little harder now, and she was starting to think that coming here had been one of her dumber ideas.

“ _Right_. That’s why you’re here on a Sunday night and not … doing whatever it was you had planned that you had you so excited earlier.”

Kate made a face before turning to look back at him. “It was just dinner with my family,” she said. “No big deal or anything.”

“Still doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”

“I’ll take the job,” Kate told him, narrowing her eyes and hoping he’d drop it at that.

“Good. But you’re deflecting.”

“Do you even know what that word means?” Kate asked him dryly, anything to avoid meeting his eyes that seemed to pick up on just a little too much.

“I mean, I’m not gonna say no to the food, Daisy, but if it was meant for your family …”

“My family doesn’t give a damn!” Kate snapped. “Okay? My family – you can’t even call it that any more. And I’ve tried, for months, and it’s just … it’s not working. I’m out of options and I …”

“Hey. It’s all right,” Seth said then, and his tone was a lot more gentle than Kate had ever heard it before, not that she was an expert on him or anything. Still. She could tell when people were out of their element.

And they both very much were right now.

“I’m the last person who’s gonna judge you for any of this shit, all right? I meant what I said. This can be that place, where you don’t have to deal with it, at least for a little while. I’ll try not to be too much of an asshole to work for.”

Kate finally looked up at him, smiling gratefully. He reached out and gave her shoulder a little squeeze, and she felt it then, the thing she’d never felt before with Kyle, the thing she’d always thought had been missing somehow.

_Butterflies._

_  
_ ***

They ate the food she had brought with her, standing around the island in the back room. Seth had made the offhand comment that he had an honest to God table in his apartment in the back, but Kate had been pretty quick to insist that right there, where they were, was just fine.

He seemed to think that was pretty amusing, for some reason. He’d given a little chuckle, his eyes alight in a way that almost seemed alien for him. Laughter and good times didn’t really feel like a proper fit on Seth … but it made Kate happy, all the same. Maybe she wasn’t actually cursed, not doomed to bring pain and misery to the people around her.

But even as he laughed, giving her a look she didn’t quite recognize, Kate knew somehow that not taking him up on his offer was the right call. Tonight had already been a little too weird. She didn’t need to add “spending time alone with an attractive older man in his apartment” to that list.

Though she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about it for a second there.

Okay. More than just a _second_.

_Kate Fuller is a good girl. Kate Fuller never does anything wrong._

They ate out of the Tupperware containers so as not to dirty up any of the dishes they’d just washed, and Kate found it … surprisingly easy to talk to Seth. At first she’d been afraid that conversation with him might be like pulling teeth. But there was an existential _ache_ there in him, one she knew very well. One she felt bone deep, herself.

The ache of the pathologically _lonely_.

And once he started talking – he talked. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent hours with someone, just talking. She learned that Seth had moved down here from Kansas City after his uncle had died, leaving the bar to he and his brother. When she inquired as to where his brother was now, and why he wasn’t around to help him out, Seth got a really sad, kinda faraway expression on his face, and simply said that he was “gone”. It dawned on Kate that maybe he’d managed to pinpoint all her issues because he had pretty similar ones.

  
Somehow it made it easier to admit out loud that this hadn’t exactly been a banner year for the Fullers, either. Before she knew it, she was telling him about how her mom had died – even about her niggling fears that her father had had something to do with it. She’d never admitted that to anyone before. Not even out loud to _herself_. She talked about the trouble with Scott, about how her father never left his room any more. How he’d given up his position at the church even.

Seth raised an eyebrow at that, moving to the fridge and grabbing two bottles – one beer and one _root_ beer. “I’d give you the real thing, but you have to drive. Not having that one on my head, Daisy. Bad enough you agreed to work for me. Not gonna be the result of the first DUI of the preacher’s daughter.”

Kate gave him a look, but smiled gratefully and took a sip once he’d popped the bottle caps off for them. “Sorry. Sometimes I ramble.”

Seth just shrugged. “It’s easier to talk to strangers sometimes,” he said, taking a long drink, eyes never leaving her face.

Kate was grateful for the bottle in her hand – peeling the label gave her fingers something to do. Everything about this was new to her. She wasn’t the girl who had a lot of friends, or the popular girl who got invited to the college parties on weekends. She was just Kate. Pastor Fuller’s daughter, pretty much her whole life. Straight-A student, bound to get all kinds of scholarships, but she’d probably just end up marrying Kyle and staying in Bethel, raising a family and being a pillar of the community, just like her mama had been. That’s what all the good girls did.

Now it didn’t all seem so clear.

“Well even if your family didn’t get to enjoy it, I’m sure not opposed to you cooking for me again,” Seth said, maybe sensing that Kate was at a loss for words.

He was good at that, she’d come to know. Good at knowing when to talk because she couldn’t any more.

Of course, she didn’t know that _then_. But she was filled with an overwhelming gratitude, all the same.

After that, the mood seemed to shift. It had stopped raining, and Kate thought maybe she should try and make a graceful exit. “I should … I should get going. I would hate for you to have to pay me overtime or something.”

“God no,” Seth told her with an overexaggerated shiver. “Can’t afford that shit.” He gave her another grin, gesturing to the nearly empty containers then. “Do you need help getting this all out to your car?”

“Truck,” Kate corrected him, and she was about to demur his offer, because really, she could manage, but then … she realized she didn’t want to. “That’d be great, actually, thanks.”

Her heart was going a little faster in her chest then, as they stepped out the back of the bar and headed over to where she’d parked. She got the feeling that he knew damn well that she hadn’t needed his help, but he didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

It felt more awkward than the nights Kyle drove her home after their “dates”, but there was no reason for it. Seth was so much older … There was no way they were on the same page here. Still, Kate couldn’t deny the little thrill she got from the idea of spending weekend evenings like this, with him, and the dumb little girl part of her brain was already working out what kind of food she should make for next week. Or would that be inappropriate, after he was _technically_ her boss?

Kate was so lost in her own, admittedly ridiculous, thoughts, that she missed his request the first time.

“Kate?”

She was pretty sure it was the fact that he’d used her actual name this time that dragged her out of her reverie. “Hmm?” She looked up at him, shaking her head a little. “I’m sorry, I missed that.”

She noted then that he’d pulled a phone out of his pocket, though he was looking at it like it was detestable. Kate bit back a giggle at that. “Your number,” he said, barely paying attention to her now as he glared at the phone in his hand. “For work, so I can get hold of you.”

 _Right_. Of course. Kate felt pretty dumb for the way her heart had leapt into her throat. She started to tell him, but trailed off when he let out a stream of curses that she had most definitely never heard before.

He looked at her then, as if just remembering she was still there. “Sorry. I just got this and I can’t figure the fucking thing out for the life of me.”

She couldn’t help it, she did laugh then, reaching to carefully pry it from his fingers. “You sound like my dad,” she teased him. “But you didn’t use the words ‘newfangled’ or ‘contraption’, so there’s that.” She entered her name and her number, adding a little smiley face after “Kate”, just because it seemed like it might irritate him, but he’d have no idea how to fix it. "Just text me and I’ll save your number.”

He looked at her like she’d grown a second head. “I don’t text,” he told her dryly.

“Then _call_ ,” Kate said with an exasperated laugh. “But I usually don’t answer unknown numbers.”

She climbed up into the driver’s seat of the truck, after noting with no small amount of pleasure that he waited to shut the door behind her. “Friday, then?” she asked, rolling down the window to double check.

“Be here by eight,” he told her, and she nodded, waiting for him to step back before putting the truck in reverse.

She drove home, her spirits lighter than they had been in months, the excitement in her veins hard to deny. She hadn’t really had anything to look forward to in months, but suddenly, everything seemed just a little bit _better_.

Maybe she was being stupid. But she’d never really been stupid before, so maybe she was overdue.

She was brushing her teeth when her phone went off. She had a missed text from Kyle, wondering if the invitation she’d sent for dinner was still on. _Whoops_ , she thought, seeing the timestamp from shortly after eight.

It was terrible, but she could barely even register the text from Kyle when she saw the one that had just come in.

_It’s Seth. U make it home?_

_**I thought you didn’t text**_

_I don’t_

_But you’re home?_

_**Safe and sound in my bed**_

He didn’t respond after that, but Kate still went to sleep with a smile on her lips.


	4. Not For Your Devil Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody's got a dark side

_There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights._

_**Bram Stoker** _

 

_**Four** _

Things went from zero to a hundred so quickly, Kate almost couldn’t keep up with it all. The first couple of weekends were fine. Normal, even. Kate got used to being around him, even if she was hyperaware of every move he made, every time his eyes were on her.

Maybe she shouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as she did. But honestly it didn’t even feel _real_ to her. She was probably making it a much bigger deal than it actually was. It was her own stupid little feelings making her imagine scenarios that wouldn’t _possibly_ ever play out for him. She was just the kid he was taking pity on.

It probably would have been easier if that were the truth.

It was the last Sunday in March, and one of the longest dry spells of the last several decades for the region, if the glaringly orange weatherman on the battered old TV in the bar’s backroom was to be believed. Kate supposed he had no reason to lie, and the dust here lately had been nearly _choking_.

She didn’t know what it was about her the made her focus on the most inconsequential details when major things happened in her life.

It was the end of her first month working at the bar. She was finishing up the last of the glasses while Seth took care of the main room this time. She wiped her hands on a towel and made her way to the front to use the bathroom.

“I wouldn’t go in there if I were you, Daisy.”

Kate jumped a little at the sound of his voice, turning to look at him, idly leaning against the broom handle in a way she was pretty sure ought to be illegal. “Well what do you suggest I do then, nature calls.” She tried to sound nonchalant but it was hard – for oh so many reasons right now.

“Well I haven’t gotten in there just yet, and we had a 21st birthday here tonight.” Seth flashed her a wicked grin, laughing when she made a face. He reached into his pocket and tossed a keyring at her, which she caught, purely from reflex more than actual skill. “Just use the one in the apartment. It’s not sterile but at least it hasn’t been vomited in. Tonight, anyway.”

Kate flustered a little. The whole time she’d been working here, she’d managed to pointedly avoid entering his apartment. His domain. It felt like crossing a line, somehow, that she wasn’t sure she was ready to cross.

But she _really_ had to pee. And it wasn’t like he was going to be in there, too. He was still cleaning the bar. It was quick, in and out. She told herself she was being completely neurotic.

“You gonna go, or make another mess for me to clean up?” He arched a brow at her. “Look, I’m gonna stay right here, all that virtue of yours is perfectly safe.”

Kate blushed. The way he said _virtue_ made it sound like a dirty word. The look he gave her didn’t help. Did he do that on purpose?

“Yeah, sorry, thanks. I’ll … I’ll be right back.”

She turned quickly, pretty sure she heard him laughing behind her, and wondering what it was about him that made it impossible for her to just act _normal_. He probably thought she was a idiot.

And he definitely thought she was an innocent little flower, which, for some reason, bothered her more than the idiot thing. There were times she was almost certain he was flirting with her … But she never knew how to respond to that, because what if she was _wrong_ and he thought she was even dumber for trying to flirt with him?

Ugh, why did he have to be so … _Seth_?

Kate made her way up the narrow metal staircase in the back of the bar that clattered under the chunky soled boots she wore with every step. Her hands shook a little as she unlocked the door at the top.

She couldn’t believe it, honestly. She was in Seth Gecko’s apartment. It felt sinful to even set foot in it. Like being in a boy’s room when his parents weren’t home, only times a _lot_.

Not that she’d know anything about that, outside of hearing about it from Jessica and the other girls. Kate had never been in _Kyle’s_ room – with his parents home or otherwise.

She flipped the switch by the door, not really sure what she’d expected. It was pretty spartan, nothing really of any sentimental value out on display. Kate was a little disappointed, but reminded herself she was here for the bathroom, not to snoop. She looked behind her as she stepped farther inside, half afraid he was going to follow her up here, and half disappointed that he didn’t.

Rolling her eyes at herself, she made her way through the living room – one old couch and a beat up recliner, a TV and a video game station hooked up to it – and past the kitchen – clean, no dirty dishes in the sink. Though that was probably because the man didn’t cook, judging by the carryout boxes in the trash. Kate tried not to picture herself in this kitchen, making a nice meal for the two of them.

“Stop,” she growled at herself, disgusted with her own thoughts as she moved down the hallway. There were only two doors, and one was a linen closet. Swallowing thickly, Kate pushed open the other door. The bedroom door. On the other side of the room, she could see the bathroom door, but that meant …

Going into his room.

She didn’t know why it felt so weird, but she flushed, her body going hot as her eyes fell on his bed. It was unmade, the sheets all rumpled – sheets _he_ slept on. She had the most insane urge to dive onto the bed and roll around for a minute, to let his scent permeate every part of her, and if he happened to come upstairs then and find her there …

Good Lord.

Shaking her head, she tore her eyes away from the bed and made her way resolutely into the bathroom. What the heck was wrong with her, anyway? She had a (kind of) boyfriend, she shouldn’t be thinking about rolling around in another man’s bed.

Even if that man was Seth Gecko and he made her feel and think things that she thought only happened in the naughty books Jessica liked to read from.

She shouldn’t be thinking about things like this _at all_. First of all, he was her _boss_. Second of all … He was a lot older. Like, a _lot_. Anything she thought she wanted, he sure as hell wasn’t thinking the same things about her. Thirdly, it was _wrong_.

None of those things eased the ache she felt when she thought about him, though. This was a crush cranked up to eleven. It was more than just a passing flirtation or holding hands in the hallway. Kyle was sweet and good to her, always supportive and doting.

Seth made her whole body burn and kept her up at night with thoughts of him that would send her straight to the fiery abyss, she was sure of it.

But she felt like he knew her better than anyone else could. The years between them didn’t seem to matter. They could talk for hours as they cleaned up the bar together, and he never asked, he didn’t have to. He’d just give her this look he had and she’d tell him how her week had been, how her brother still barely spoke to her and how she thought her father was trying to drink himself to death – things she couldn’t tell the kids at school, cuz how would they understand?

But Seth listened and he never judged. Instead of trying to fix all her problems, or giving her the sympathetic tsking she was so used to, he’d tell her about his brother, how close they’d always been, and how he’d moved to Mexico with some girl after their uncle died, leaving Seth in charge of the place. He’d said that Richie tried to get him to go with him, but Seth couldn’t imagine leaving the bar that Eddie had left them to a stranger.

“Not yet, anyway,” he always clarified.

Kate could sense the waves of hurt from him, ones she was all too familiar with, and there had been a few times, in the dim light of the bar, that she’d wanted nothing more than to lean in and ease that ache for both of them.

But that wasn’t something Kate Fuller could do.

She’d used to think that she was in love with Kyle, because that was the way things were done with people like her. But now that she knew Seth, and knew what it was to be really understood … to really connect … she knew she’d been wrong.

She hadn’t even told anyone at school, not even Kyle, what it was she was doing on weekends now. It felt wrong to let them in on it. Her time with Seth was precious to her … being alone in the bar with him after hours was sacred ground. It was hers only and she’d be _damned_ if anyone was going to take it from her.

Kate caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror above his bathroom sink, and studied herself critically. She wondered what Seth thought when he looked at her. Did he notice the color of her eyes, how they darkened a little, after she’d been here? She knew he watched her when he thought she wasn’t looking, he wasn’t that sneaky. Was he noticing her curves, or telling himself _not_ to? Did he think about her _at all?_

She turned the faucet on and started to wash up, and it was then that her eyes landed on the bottle. She knew it was none of her business, but it wasn’t as though she’d gone snooping through his medicine cabinet, it was sitting on the counter.

Prescription. No refills. Methadone.

Kate’s brow creased, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket and did a quick search.

_Often prescribed to negate the effects of heroin withdrawal_

Wait, _what_?

Kate made her way back downstairs, somehow maintaining the presence of mind to lock up behind herself. She found him, heading into the restroom, looking like he was going up against biological warfare, rubber gloves and all. He grinned when he saw her, and Kate’s heart fluttered … But she was shaken to the core by what she’d seen upstairs.

“Um is there anything else you need me to do?” She set his keys down on the counter, watching him, wondering if maybe there was another explanation.

Seth’s expression changed then, the smile on his lips fading as he looked at her. “You all right there, Daisy?” he asked her and Kate wished he wouldn’t. What had she gotten herself into?

“I’m fine, Seth, I just don’t feel great and I still have this paper I need to work on for next week …” She trailed off, shrugging a little awkwardly. It wasn’t _totally_ a lie. She really _wasn’t_ feeling well right now.

Seth’s brow furrowed a little, and she could tell he was going to try and break that unspoken rule of theirs, the no questions rule.

“So I’m just gonna … Go. If that’s all right. And I’ll … I’ll see you next week.”

“Kate.”

She’d already turned and headed into the back. She wasn’t going to let him sway her right now. Her head was spinning with questions, but she didn’t like any of the possible answers. Maybe it was stupid of her to feel _betrayed_ , but she’d thought that they really understood each other.

“Kate!”

That was a pretty big secret to be keeping.

Of course, if she’d made it all up in her mind, that they connected, then she really had no one but herself to blame. She yanked the door to her truck open, coughing at the dust that kicked up from even that small action.

“ _Kate_!”

She ignored the fact that she could hear him, practically _yelling_ her name from the back door of the bar, and spun the tires out as she pulled out of the lot.

He was calling before she even hit the city limits. She ignored it, and the next _twenty times_ that her phone went off. “Take a hint,” she gritted, blinking back tears that she was going to blame on the dust.

_Answr ur goddamn phone_

Kate rolled her eyes at the text that came through just as she was pulling into her driveway. “Fat chance, Gecko,” she muttered, cutting the engine.

She stomped her way into the house, her night only getting _better_ when she found her dad passed out drunk on the bathroom floor. She wanted to scream, but somehow found the wherewithal to get him cleaned up and awake long enough to get him back into bed.

“Oh, Katie-Cakes,” he mumbled nonsensically as she tucked him in. “You’ve got too good a heart.”

For some reason, _that_ was the thing that pushed her over the edge and she burst into tears. Her phone rang again, and instead of hitting the reject button, she answered it. Maybe part of her wanted the punishment. Maybe she thought she deserved it.

“Fucking finally!” He was talking before she could even say hello.

Kate sank down to the floor against the wall just outside her father’s room. “What do you _want_?” she asked him wearily, brushing the tears off her cheeks.

Whatever he heard in her voice seemed to knock the wind right out of whatever rant he’d had prepared for her. He sighed heavily. “I just want to talk to you, all right? I owe you an explanation.”

“So talk,” Kate told him. She just didn’t have the energy to fight any more.

“Not on the phone. Come outside.”

Kate’s head snapped up at that, and she made her way downstairs, just in time to see headlights in her driveway. “Are you _kidding_ me?” She hung up then, arms crossed over her chest as she stepped outside. He was just getting out of his car as she approached. “This constitutes stalking, you know.”

“Then call the fucking cops,” he said, giving her a look that was so damn infuriating, she almost wanted to just for that. “Or get in the fucking car. Those are the only two ways I’m leaving.”

Kate gaped at him a little. It was nearly midnight, on a Sunday, and in this neighborhood, this kind of thing _would_ become gossip in a hot minute. With a huff and a glare, Kate marched to the passenger side of the car and nearly ripped the door off its handles. Everything was just … _too much_ all of a sudden, and she was angrier than she’d ever been in her _life_.

“You are such a …” She trailed off, not sure there was a word strong enough to convey just how mad she was – about all of this. Him lying to her, her home life, the fact that there was no escape, the fact that she _wanted_ him and hated herself for it because she knew how stupid and pointless it all was.

“Such a _what_?” Seth taunted her, speeding his car down the quiet streets of Bethel, heading out of town the back way, down the dirt roads that mostly only the farmers used any more. Maybe she should have been scared, but Seth Gecko was a lot of things – but a threat to her was not one of them. “Come on, Daisy, tell me what I am. Or are you too _good_?” He sneered and Kate’s anger flared even hotter.

“What the _hell_ is wrong with you right now?” she spat out, arms still crossed over her chest as he drove, too fast, down the dirt roads.

“What are you even doing working for me?” he asked her then.

“Because you _asked_ me to?” Kate retorted blankly.

“That’s bullshit, Kate, why’d you even come back to my place, why are you wasting your time? You know now, I’m a piece of shit and you ought to keep your damn distance.”

“That’s pretty rich coming from the guy who _followed me home,_ ” Kate shouted back. It sort of felt good to yell.

“I was _worried_ about you, Jesus. You took off like a bat out of hell, wouldn’t answer my calls. You were right to leave though. You shouldn’t come back. Just stay here in Bethel with your good little school friends and that boyfriend …”

“Are you _firing_ me?” Kate was livid. Of all the things … “What does _Kyle_ have to do with anything?”

“You need to stay the fuck away from me, Kate, I mean it.”

“So you’re firing me because I’m _good_? This has _nothing_ to do with what I found in your bathroom?”

“It has _everything_ to do with that. Just … Jesus, Kate. I’m firing you for your own good.”

Well if that just didn’t take the _fucking_ cake.

“Gee, thanks, _Daddy_ , but I’m a big girl and I think I can make my own _goddamn_ decisions!”

For some reason that was the _wrong_ thing to say. Seth went stone silent, his mouth set in a firm line. He slammed on the brakes then, hard enough to send the car into a spinout on the gravel.

Kate screamed a little as the car jolted to a rough stop. “Jesus _fucking_ Christ, Kate,” Seth growled venomously, before he got out of the car, leaving Kate dazed and confused about what the hell had just happened.

It only took her a moment to get her bearings, and then she was clambering out of the car after him. They were in the middle of nowhere, the light from the waning half moon the only illumination.

“Get back in the fucking car, Kate,” Seth said, and even though his tone brooked no room for argument, Kate didn’t listen.

“Not until you tell me what the _hell_ is the matter with you right now.” Kate caught up with him, even though she knew she should have listened to him. “I want to know why you’re firing me.”

He kept walking, but Kate grabbed him by the shoulder. “ _Answer me_ , goddamnit.”

He whirled on her then, and the look in his eyes was the most frightening thing she’d ever seen in her life – because of the way it made her _burn_. “Do you _really_ want to know?” he asked her, his voice lower now, darker somehow, like he was speaking to a part of her that hadn’t woken up until this very moment.

“I wouldn’t have asked,” she said, but the anger had gone out of her voice now. She almost couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in her ears.

He took a step closer to her then, then another, and Kate thought about backing up, but the way he was looming over her was too heady, she was rooted to the spot.

“Last chance, princess. You need to stay away from me, because you deserve a whole lot better than getting dragged into my shit,” he told her. “And because every time I’m alone with you …”

“What?” Kate asked, eyes widening a little when he trailed off. “ _Seth_.”

“Fuck it. You are driving me crazy.”

Kate didn’t have a chance to ask what he meant, before both his hands were cupping her face and his mouth had descended upon hers, hot, hungry, and desperate.


	5. The Two of Us are Just Young Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Seth is a Mature Adult (spoiler alert - no), and there is angst (I promise it gets better)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, THIS TOOK ME SO LONG. But yay it's finally here! Little sidenote, I'm aware that the song lyrics I used in this chapter are from a song that isn't actually played on the radio. But it's what I needed for the moment so ... Let's just go with it. Thank you all soooo much for reading and sticking with me on this one!

_Three things cannot be long hidden:_   
_The sun, the moon, and the truth._

**_Buddha_ **

_**Five** _

It was strange, the things the mind could conjure at any time. Kate wouldn’t really call it a _comparison_ , not in the strictest sense of the word, but it was hard to not recall the smell of the church, pine resin and old books and incense and that faint chlorine smell from the baptismal pool behind the altar, the feel of the wooden pew beneath her fingers as she held onto it the first time …

There was nothing to hold onto this time. Nothing but _him_ and even that seemed like its own special brand of madness. The air was hot and still and dry, and it smelled like _heat_. His thumbs brushed over the rises of her cheeks as her own lips, at the insistence of his, parted, her tongue sliding out against his. It made her dizzy, it made her weak in the knees. There was no comparison to be made because _nothing compared_ to this.

The madness took hold of her then and her hands fisted in the front of his shirt. One of them groaned – she thought it was him, and so she stood on her tiptoes, just to get closer. It didn’t matter that they’d just been shouting at each other moments ago, it didn’t matter that they were in the middle of nowhere, it didn’t even matter to her that she should feel guilty, or sorry, or something that might prove she wasn’t completely screwed up in the head.

All that mattered was that this was the first time in months, maybe since her mother had died, that she felt like she was actually _alive_ again. That she felt like _Kate_.

One of his hands had moved from her face, and now rested at the small of her back. He pulled her flush against him and if she’d been worried that she wasn’t a good kisser, well, those fears were pretty much laid to rest, replaced by a whole new set of feelings, and a heat that flooded her whole body. “Seth,” she breathed out, lips still brushing against his. Of all the ways she’d ever said his name, she’d only ever dreamed she’d be saying it like _this_.

He gave another little groan, and she found herself being lifted bodily, his hands sliding down over the curve of her bottom, as he moved them – as if she weighed nothing – setting her down on trunk of his car, positioning himself between her legs. His lips hadn’t left hers and Kate finally understood what all the books were talking about when they spoke of breathless kisses. She could feel him pressing up against the apex of her thighs and maybe it should have felt bad or wrong somehow, but it didn’t. It didn’t even scare her, the way she thought she was supposed to feel scared.

There was no hesitation with Seth, no timid testing of the waters, no shy questions. While those things were all well and good, Kate was quickly discovering that she much preferred this. Being kissed until she couldn’t even _think_ straight, by someone who knew what he was doing, and did it well.

She gasped out a little when his lips trailed away from hers, down along her jawline. His fingers tugged her hair a little, tipping her head back. Kate shivered, eyes falling shut, lips parting wordlessly as his lips traced down her neck. He mumbled something that she couldn’t quite hear, but maybe it didn’t matter.

Except apparently it had been a question or something that demanded an answer, because he pulled back, and in spite of herself, Kate actually _whined_ a little in protest. He gave her that infuriating, cocksure grin of his, hand moving back to her cheek. “How you doing there, princess?” Kate took some small satisfaction from the way his voice sounded breathless and strained.

“Fine until you stopped,” she retorted, without really meaning to say it out loud. He chuckled at that and it made her want to punch him right in his smug mouth. He must’ve sensed it, too, because he kissed her again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered against her lips and she got the feeling – and knew from experience with him – that apologies were not something that came easy to Seth Gecko. And she knew he wasn’t just apologizing for stopping.

Still didn’t erase the whole screwed up night. Kate pulled back a little, one hand moving to brush over his cheek. “I still have questions,” she told him, eyes meeting his. The look in his own eyes was one of remorse and regret, and Kate really hoped he wasn’t about to tell her this had all been some colossal mistake. She didn’t know if she would be able to come back from that one.

“You can ask,” he told her, sighing a little, and suddenly she didn’t want to. Maybe he had a past, but if things had gone differently for him – would he be here with her now?

She shook her head. “Not right now,” she said softly. “It can wait.” She leaned in again and she half expected him to pull back, but he didn’t, his tattooed arm going around her once more, pulling her close to the edge of the car as his mouth found hers again.

There was more to all this, and Seth didn’t strike her as the kind of man who was used to taking things slow. But he never made it seem like he needed anything more than her lips against his, even as his fingers tangled in her hair, even when she moaned a little, and she could feel him stirring there against where their bodies were pressed together.

“Seth?” Kate mumbled against his lips some time later. She had no idea how long they’d been out here, no one had ever told her how easy it was to lose track of time like this. “Am I still fired?”

“Fuck no.” He growled a little then, hands skimming back down to the curve of her hips, fingertips slipping up under the hem of her shirt. Kate inhaled sharply, and his fingers stilled against her skin. He pulled back then, looking at her, and there was something different in his eyes now. “Don’t you have a boyfriend?”

Kate blinked, a little taken aback by that. “You mean Kyle? I …” She trailed off, contorting her face a little. She supposed he _was_ , for all intents and purposes, but she’d never really felt … He said he loved her and she said it back, because it was the right thing to do, because that’s what good girls did. But she didn’t think she’d ever meant it, not really. “I guess so. I mean, he’s nice. He texts me bible verses when I’m having a bad day.”

Seth gave her a look. His thumb was still brushing bare skin just above the waistband of her jeans, and it was making it hard for Kate to think about anything else. He blew out a breath – he sounded frustrated. “Good little choir boy and the preacher’s daughter, huh? Quite the cliché.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Isn’t being out here with you more like what they say we preacher’s kids are supposed to be like?” She tilted her head a little, eyes searching his face with a little smirk on her lips.

“I should take you home,” Seth said then, pulling back a little, his hand moving from beneath her shirt.

Kate’s brow furrowed. “Because of Kyle?” she asked him, crossing her arms in front of her chest then, feeling chilled in spite of the heat of the night now that he’d pulled away from her. “I’m not … we’re not … He’s sweet and he’s nice but I don’t …” She blew out a frustrated breath of her own.

“You don’t what?” Seth asked her, and suddenly he was close again, too close, and she couldn’t breathe properly with him looking at her like that.

“I don’t love _him_ ,” she said, and it was a simple statement – but it was what she _didn’t_ say that was what was going to damn her.

Damn _him_. She hadn’t asked for any of this, it would be easier to go back to her life, pretending that how she felt about Kyle was love and that it was enough for her. But she couldn’t, not after meeting Seth. Not after _this_.

“Goddamnit, Kate,” Seth cursed, and he kissed her again, so hard she was sure her lips would be bruised from it, as well as her upper arms where he was gripping them. She didn’t mind though. He might as well leave external marks to match the ones he’d left on her heart, her mind, her _soul_. “Get in the car.”

He all but pushed her back – or maybe it was himself he was pushing. She could feel the distance between them now and it scared her. “Seth –“

“Just get in the car,” he told her, already walking to the driver’s side.

Kate sat there on the trunk of the car, stunned for a moment, before she made herself move and get into the car. 

Seth had turned the radio on, loud enough that Kate could figure out that he wasn’t interested in talking. Which was fine. What else was there to say, really? Hadn’t she said enough already?

Kate watched him as surreptitiously as she could, watched the way his hands moved over the stick shift, watched the clench of his jaw by the dashboard light. The radio was playing a song she’d never heard, but the word sung by a girl singing about a young god struck a painfully familiar chord within her.

 _He says “ooh baby girl don’t get cut on my edges_  
        I’m the king of everything and oh my tongue is a weapon.  
       There’s a light in the crack that’s separating your thighs  
       And if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight.”

Well. There was _that_. Kate thought she saw him look at her from the corner of his eyes then, but he’d pulled to a stop in front of her house. There were so many things she wanted to ask, to say. She wanted to lean over and kiss him but she didn’t dare.

He still didn’t say anything, so she didn’t either, she just slipped out of the car and hoped that whatever had happened here tonight would be a long forgotten memory by the time she went back to work on Friday night.

She didn’t go to school the next day. She was in no danger of not graduating in May – less than two months away – and she wasn’t sure she was ready to face everyone. Kyle. She’d have to tell him something. Seth’s weirdness at the end of the night didn’t negate what had happened. Not to her, at least. It didn’t change the way she felt. She couldn’t keep pretending that she wanted to be with Kyle.

Of course, she knew better than to expect that he wouldn’t come over as soon as school let out. Kate answered the door in her flannel sleeping shorts, her bathrobe thrown over that. She hadn’t done anything all day, except idly play with the idea of texting Seth, just to see if he’d even respond.

“Are you sick?” Kyle asked, the very picture of concern. “I texted you but …”

She’d gotten the texts, all five of them. “I was sleeping,” she lied. “I had … ya know … female problems.” That would be enough info for him. Kyle was your typical teenage boy when it came to hearing about “female problems”.

“Ah,” he said with a nod. “Are you feeling better now?”

Kate smiled a little wistfully, leaning against the door frame. “I’ll live,” she assured him. “It was nice of you to come check on me.”

Kyle smiled at her, and Kate wished she could say it did something for her. But all she could think about was Seth. And last night. The way he’d smiled at her before …

_How you doing there, princess?_

Kate supposed it must have shown on her face, cuz Kyle took a step toward her, worry all over his features. Kate held up a hand to stop him. “I’m really sorry, Kyle,” she gasped out, already starting to close the door. “I’m just gonna go lie down again.”

It was probably rude, the way she shut the door in his face, but she wasn’t exactly at her best right now. Maybe it _was_ guilt she was feeling. But it sorta felt more … backward. She felt guilty for seeing Kyle. Seth was the one she wanted.

She made sure Kyle had gotten in his truck and driven away before she went into the bathroom. She turned the water on hot, letting the steam fill up the place as she showered. She took extra time with her hair and picking out what to wear. Maybe she was acting crazy. Maybe she was crazy. But there was no way she could get through the rest of the week until Friday night if she didn’t talk to him.

That’s what mature adults did, right? They _talked_. She didn’t want him to think it was a mistake. It wasn’t to her.

She was _almost_ calm and rational, driving out of town. She had _almost_ managed to convince herself that she could actually look at him and not turn into a blathering idiot. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to say to him, but she knew that the crux of it all was …

That she wanted to be with him.

She pulled up around the back of the bar, just like always. She noted that hers was the only car in the lot, and wondered if this was typical for Monday afternoons. It must be. Most of a bar’s business was probably done on weekends.

Taking a deep breath and checking her reflection once more in the rearview mirror, she made her way to the back door and used her key to get inside. There was nobody in the back room. Nobody in the kitchen or the stock room either. Kate’s heartbeat quickened in her chest. She didn’t think that the bar was closed on Mondays, but maybe …?

The bar itself was empty. “Anyone here?” Kate called then, though it was pretty obvious that she was alone here. “Seth?”

She was starting to feel that choking, desperate feeling, clawing its way up her throat as she made her way up the stairs toward his apartment. She started to knock, but the door was unlocked, ajar. “Seth?” she asked, her voice wavering a little.

Her mind tried to justify what she was seeing, telling herself there had to be an explanation. The furniture was still there. But everything else was gone. She wandered through the kitchen and down the hall, back toward the bedroom. The bed was stripped bare, the closet empty.

Nothing in the bathroom. That little bottle of pills that had ignited this whole powder keg – it was gone too.

Kate gripped at the edge of the sink, not daring to look up at her reflection, afraid to see the truth in her own eyes, the truth that she was trying madly to deny.

He was _gone_. Seth was gone.

With shaking fingers, she reached in her pocket for her phone. She pushed the little button below the picture she’d sneakily taken of him shortly after she’d started working here, and brought the phone up to her ear.

The error tone was deafening. _We’re sorry. The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected._

Kate let the phone slip from her fingertips and only then did she see a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror. There were tears on her cheeks – she hadn’t even felt them fall. But there they were, all the same.

She supposed that was pretty fitting, all things considered.

She hadn’t realized _she’d_ been falling either. Hard, fast, _completely_.

And now he was gone.

The right thing to do, the strong thing to do, would be to leave now. Put this place behind her, forget she’d ever met Seth Gecko. You weren’t supposed to waste tears on someone who wouldn’t waste them on _you_.

But Kate was goddamn _tired_ of being the strong one. What good did it ever do her? Everyone she’d ever loved was gone. Maybe not in the literal sense, but gone all the same. And dammit, after all this time, after everything … She thought she’d be worth an actual _goodbye_. Not just sneaking away like a thief in the night, leaving nothing but the ghost of himself behind, lingering in every corner of her mind.

“You are such a _fucking_ _bastard_!” Kate yelled, wondering if some part of him would hear her if she screamed it loud enough. “Goddamn you straight to hell, Seth Gecko.” She hissed the words before she angrily punched the mirror above the sink.

Not hard enough to shatter, she guessed she wasn’t strong enough for that. But the glass did splinter a little, leaving spiderwebby cracks all across the surface, distorting the image within.

Her hand was bleeding, little drops of crimson staining the porcelain of the sink.

Somewhere in there was a metaphor, but Kate couldn’t see it for the tears as she sank to the floor and let herself cry.

 


End file.
